Foamed or cellular concrete bodies, respectively, have to be reinforced by well-known means for the purpose of withstanding not only high compressive loads but also tensile stresses. Commonly used reinforcements are bars, welded reinforcement mesh and/or e.g. steel reinforcement cages that are formed by welding reinforcement mesh. Referring to FIG. 10, for prior art, the production of such reinforced, foamed or cellular concrete bodies, respectively, usually fresh and workable concrete slurry of a well-known composition for cellular or foamed concrete is at first poured into e.g. a rectangular casting mould 100 and then previously welded reinforcement cages 101 are inserted into the fresh concrete slurry. It is important to position and fix the reinforcement cages 101 such that they are sufficiently spaced from the side-walls 102, base 103 of the casting mould 100 as well as the surface of the cast concrete component, so as to be completely enclosed by the concrete cover. The reinforcement cages 101 must be held in this preset position in the casting mould 100, until the cellular concrete slurry has sufficiently hardened and eventually expanded as a result of hydration, namely, attained its green strength and supports the reinforcement cages 101 by itself.
Providing a rectangular reinforcement support frame 104 that can be placed at the centre of the side walls 102 of the casting mould 100 for holding the reinforcement cages 101 during this initial hardening and optionally hydration process has been known. The reinforcement support frame 104 is provided with several beams 106 for reinforcement support or suspension. These beams can be moved along the longitudinal direction of the reinforcement support frame 104 and they span across the reinforcement support frame 104 and the casting mould 100 along the transverse horizontal direction. These reinforcement support beams 106 in turn exhibit several vertically-extending drill-holes and/or apertures 107 (illustrated only schematically). An essentially cylindrical supporting bar 108 is suspended through each of the drill-holes 107. Each of the reinforcement cages 101 is fastened to the supporting bar 108 such that after setting of the cast concrete, these rods 108 can be easily detached from the reinforcement cages 101 and drawn out of the hardened cast concrete. For instance, the reinforcement cages 101 are provided with one or more fasteners in the form of an oval hole or loop, with which each one the reinforcement cages is tied to a supporting bar 108. The supporting bars 108 exhibit, for instance, radially protruding prongs or hinge pins (not illustrated) for fastening the supporting bars 108 to the reinforcement cage 101. This is accomplished e.g. in the form of a bayonet closure or the like by turning the supporting bars 108 around their longitudinal axis after being tied to the loop-like fasteners. Thus, the reinforcement cages 101 are suspended at the supporting bars 108 at a plane positioned within the casting mould 100. In case of reinforcement cages 101 composed of superimposed reinforcement mesh 109, it is also common practice to interpose spacers and/or transverse connectors 110 made of e.g. plastic. They exhibit such an oval loop at the centre that facilitates their attachment to both reinforcement mesh 109.
Furthermore, it is known from EP 0 060 232 B1 that horizontally extending spring arms, whose one end is fastened to a crosswise rod and the other end is pressed with a certain spring tension against a vertical supporting bar, are provided for holding longitudinal bars that are connected by individual crosswise rods. The supporting bar additionally exhibits two horizontally protruding pins that are superimposed such that they flush with each other along a vertical plane. If the supporting bar is arranged such that the spring arm is pressed between both pins against the supporting bars, the supporting bar stably holds the reinforcement and cannot be vertically drawn out. If the supporting bar is turned by an angle of approximately 90°, the pins cease to surround the spring arm both from above and below and the supporting bars can be removed.
The disadvantage of this known process is that, on the one hand, the supporting bars 108 have to be manually suspended into the drill-holes 107 in the reinforcement support beams 106, and on the other hand, the reinforcement cages 101 also have to be manually attached to the supporting bars 108.
Furthermore, the position of the supporting bars 108, and thus, the position of the reinforcement cages 101 suspended at the supporting bars 108 can be set along the transverse direction only in the spatial pattern specified by the position of the drill-holes 107 in the reinforcement support beams 106.
Furthermore, prior to being inserted into the casting mould 100, the reinforcement cages 101 that are suspended at the supporting bars 108 are usually dipped in a bath containing rust-proofing agents to avoid corrosion in the finished structural component. The supporting bars 108 are also forced to submerge at least partly into the immersion bath. Constant accumulation of the rust-proofing layer on the rods 108 must be prevented to ensure their reuse. The size of the loop-like fasteners is adapted to the diameter of the supporting bars 108 so as to keep the depth of entry of the supporting bars into the loop-like fasteners as little as possible. Therefore, prior to the attachment of the reinforcement cages 101 to the supporting bars 108, the supporting bars 108 are usually dipped into paraffin in an additional upstream processing step. As a consequence, permanent adherence of the rust-proofing agent to the supporting bars 108 is prevented. After each production process, the paraffin and the rust-proofing agent must be removed again from the supporting bars 108 in an additional processing step. Alternatively, other pins or hooks, which have to be replaced by the correct supporting bars 108 after the dipping process, are used for dipping the reinforcement cages 101. In any case, at least an additional processing step is necessary for the protection of the supporting bars 108, leading to time and cost-related disadvantages.